New Providence
New Providence is a colony of nearly a hundred thousand located in a Horizon Realm created by Magi fleeing the looming second millennial darkness on Earth. It is present in the same physical universe as Earth, although it is incredibly distant from it and would require a vessel adept at faster than light travel to reach. It is considerably more difficult for the planet to be reached by Tulaq-assisted and other trans-dimensional forms of travel; a persistent feature of the strange realm is that it seems capable of warping space and time around it to make it perpetually distant from any point in reality. As such, it has been theorized that the young realm is on the "edge" of GOD, and may be a new cell formed in the last few thousand years. The Magi present at the discovery and terraforming of the virgin planet selected the image in the upper right to be used to represent their undertaking. Later, when the colony would establish the Articles of Intent, and the Association of Virtues, establishing a policy of unified direct democratic rule amongst the small few hundreds of citizens, it was voted upon and ratified that the image, known as "The Crest of Rhode," would continue to be used. A steep majority of the original settlers accepted the symbol with little debate of record, and serious motions to alter state iconography have not gained momentum since. Colonization The origins of the colony date back to former Consul Kenneth Williams' resistance cell that emerged to battle the emerging Technocracy in the early 1920's. Williams and company used the realm as a hideout for three decades before attempts to protect key members of their community during the struggle resulted in a de facto community springing up in their safe haven. Early Colonial Era As more Magi were gathered there, or paused to find respite there, their inherent abilities began to manipulate the virgin reality of the planet. The result has been a strange fusion of dominant paradigms for it's ambient reality; namely the potent presence of High-Technology and Hermetic Occultism, and powerful nodes present flavored in all nine of the Spheres of mortal Magick. On a street in New Providence, one is as likely to see a human clad in a powered suit as a robed wizard attended by spectral servants. After the community had begun to attract Magi wayfarers and their dependents who were simply fleeing persecution from the Technocracy and did not necessarily want to act under orders from the original settlers, there resulted a conflict that would later come to be referred to as the Dervish Schism. The near death-knell of the civilization proved to be the crucible upon which it was born. The truce called upon the death of Devon Dervish ultimately resulted in the talks that produced the Articles of Intent and the Association of Virtues, which are the basis for the current Providential Government. The "Free Word, Free Haven" policy listed in the Articles of Intent gave rise to the first population boom. At the signing of the articles a brief, rough, census resulted in the count of five hundred settlers. Within five years, by Earth year 1980, there would be a single standing city of nearly fifty thousand with hundreds of Magi representing many of the original Magical Traditions. The Boom Years The turn of the millennium heralded an end to a number of crises that would have intuitively seemed to cause the Magi to want to migrate back to Earth. The contrary was what actually happened; returning home to find a weakened Technocracy was bittersweet given the ailing state of the world. As Technocratic control weakend, Providence found refugees from both sides of the fighting seeking asylum. Sworn enemies were free to use the mutable, easily manipulated environment to carve themselves niches, as far away from one another as they liked. A series of attacks culminating in clashes with Technocratic agents resulted in what was referred to as the Flag Treason, during which, civic functions were suspended for the better part of three weeks while Technocratic assault teams disabled key utilities and instigated punitive terror raids for New Providence's role in smuggling weapons to anti-Technocratic factions back on Earth. Midway through the second week, it was an ostensibly retired Consul/Archmagus Kent Williams, now 130 years old, who rallied the populace and organized the normally peaceful, albeit factional, citizenry into a resistance, ousted the raiding parties, and led a team that crippled the Technocratic hyper-tech vessel that had borne them to New Providence. Williams, and some two dozen of the Hermetic Order of Meritorious Combat magi were believed to still be aboard the vessel when it lost power in low orbit and plunged into New Providence's arctic sea. Reformation Era and the Colonial Forces Act In the aftermath of the Flag Treason, it was revealed that a group of former Virtual Adepts had been violating the Free World, Free Haven clause of the Articles by directly staging assaults on Technocratic strongholds. Despite the clear illegality of these activities, many of the populace were inclined to let them off the hook. Thoughts of prosecution for the involved parties were dismissed upon the adoption of the Colonial Forces Act, and the installation of Kurt Wagner to the seat of Consul. In practice, Wagner was able to stem the populace thirst for revenge and channel it into the acts of raising, training, and arming a defense force. The Colonial Forces Act included provisions for establishing standard brigades of armed soldiers, a Navy, and created the White-Cloak battalion of insurgent hunters and secret police. The White-Cloaks were Wagner's own vision; they were formed from the remains of the Order of Meritorious Combat and were intended to ensure that the Articles and their Amendments weren't compromised in such a way that they endangered the colony again. The great naval projects undertaken in this time called for an unprecedented move; Consul Wagner actively called for immigrants from earth, especially Technocratic scientists and the Consul's fellow Sons of Ether, to bring as much manpower to bear on the creation of their enormous capitol ships as possible. The allure of endless resources and the invitation to collaborate on what would later become Providential standard construction techniques, a remarkable system of interchangeable designs and standardizations, brought many more citizens to the world. Contact with the Dermal Community and The New Society Initiative By the time that New Providence first encountered the other Colonies in the Dermal Community, and the political/social/military entity known as ANSWER, in Earth year 2008, the Providential Navy consisted of 58 commissioned ships including three kilometer-long battle cruisers, the Cheshire Pride, the Dr. Kenneth Williams, and The Great Society, a number of smaller combat craft, and two dozen ships dedicated solely to exploration and reconnaissance. The first chance encounter was inauspicious; a group of ANSWER Tulaq-mounted riders encountered a water scavenging party that had disembarked from the Katydid, a science vessel in a flotilla with two small combat vessels. While filling a cargo shuttle's tanks with water, they inquired of the nature of the Riders, and bargained with them for the location of food in exchange for foodstuffs and other basic materials that had been manufactured on New Providence. It was ultimately those manufactured goods that alerted leaders in the Dermal Community that there was another human faction located in the far reaches of the universe. When the crew of the Katydid returned it's findings to New Providence, an alarmed government exobiology wing likewise presumed the existence of other human colonies, and launched an initiative to find them and open a dialogue. It was ANSWER that put the puzzle together first. When a re-enactment of the Katydid incident occurred with soldiers on exercises dispatched from the Rephaim, a troop transport, the Riders were able to gather certain information from the crew that led ANSWER leadership to the conclusion that the New Providence ships had woefully poor dimensional travel abilities, and operated mainly by manipulating real-space. Accordingly, it was unlikely that Providential vessels could ever travel between the Dermal Community colonies and their home planet; Tulaq were far more suited to these modes of travel than the gargantuan metallic shells the Providentials had developed. Without the same luck in understanding the situation as their colleagues in ANSWER, Wagner and the Providential leadership campaigned for what became called the “New Society Initiative.” Diplomats and representatives of the Democratic Council were disseminated amongst the fleet in hopes of establishing contact with civilizations possibly friendlier than Earth. The ships have taken to the stars, but, barring a chance encounter, it is unlikely that Providential forces will ever discover a Dermal Community colony.